Medium between a Fop and a Sloven is what a Man of Sense would
endeavour to keep; yet I remember Mr.
Osbourn
advises his Son
to
appear in his Habit rather above than below his Fortune; and tells him,
that he will find an handsom Suit of Cloathes always procures some
additional Respect. I have indeed myself observed that my Banker bows
lowest to me when I wear my full-bottom'd Wig; and writes me
Mr.
or
Esq.
, accordingly as he sees me dressed.
I shall conclude this Paper with an Adventure which I was myself an
Eye-witness of very lately.
I happened the other Day to call in at a celebrated Coffee-house near
the
Temple
. I had not been there long when there came in an elderly
Man very meanly dressed, and sat down by me; he had a thread-bare loose
Coat on, which it was plain he wore to keep himself warm, and not to
favour his under Suit, which seemed to have been at least its
Contemporary: His short Wig and Hat were both answerable to the rest of
his Apparel. He was no sooner seated than he called for a Dish of Tea;
but as several Gentlemen in the Room wanted other things, the Boys of
the House did not think themselves at leisure to mind him.
could
observe the old Fellow was very uneasy at the Affront, and at his being
obliged to repeat his Commands several times to no purpose; 'till at
last one of the
lads
presented him with some stale Tea in a broken
Dish, accompanied with a Plate of brown Sugar; which so raised his
Indignation, that after several obliging Appellations of Dog and Rascal,
he asked him aloud before the whole Company,
Why he must be used with
less Respect than that Fop there?
pointing to a well-dressed young
Gentleman who was drinking Tea at the opposite Table.
Boy of the
House replied with a
great
deal of Pertness, That his Master had
two sorts of Customers, and that the Gentleman at the other Table had
given him many a Sixpence for wiping his Shoes. By this time the young
Templar
, who found his Honour concerned in the Dispute, and that the
Eyes of the whole Coffee-house were upon him, had thrown aside a Paper
he had in his Hand, and was coming towards us, while we at the Table
made what haste we could to get away from the impending Quarrel, but
were all of us surprised to see him as he approached nearer put on an
Air of Deference and Respect. To whom the old Man said,
Hark you,
Sirrah, I'll pay off your extravagant Bills once more; but will take
effectual Care for the future, that your Prodigality shall not spirit up
a Parcel of Rascals to insult your Father
.
Tho' I by no means approve either the Impudence of the Servants or the
Extravagance of the Son, I cannot but think the old Gentleman was in
some measure justly served for walking in Masquerade, I mean appearing
in a Dress so much beneath his Quality and Estate.
X.
Advice to a Son
, by Francis Osborn, Esq., Part I. sect. 23.
Rascals
good
Contents
Contents p.5
|
Thursday, August 23, 1711 |
Steele |
Maximas Virtutes jacere omnes necesse est Voluptate dominante.
Tull. de Fin.
I know no one Character that gives Reason a greater Shock, at the same
Time that it presents a good ridiculous Image to the Imagination, than
that of a Man of Wit and Pleasure about the Town. This Description of a
Man of Fashion, spoken by some with a Mixture of Scorn and Ridicule, by
others with great Gravity as a laudable Distinction, is in every Body's
Mouth that spends any Time in Conversation. My Friend
Will. Honeycomb
has this Expression very frequently; and I never could understand by the
Story which follows, upon his Mention of such a one, but that his Man of
Wit and Pleasure was either a Drunkard too old for Wenching, or a young
lewd Fellow with some Liveliness, who would converse with you, receive
kind Offices of you, and at the same time debauch your Sister, or lie
with your Wife. According to his Description, a Man of Wit, when he
could have Wenches for Crowns apiece which he liked quite as well, would
be so extravagant as to bribe Servants, make false Friendships, fight
Relations: I say, according to him, plain and simple Vice was too little
for a Man of Wit and Pleasure; but he would leave an easy and accessible
Wickedness, to come at the same thing with only the Addition of certain
Falshood and possible Murder.
Will
, thinks the Town grown very dull, in
that we do not hear so much as we used to do of these Coxcombs, whom
(without observing it) he describes as the most infamous Rogues in
Nature, with relation to Friendship, Love, or Conversation.
When Pleasure is made the chief Pursuit of Life, it will necessarily
follow that such Monsters as these will arise from a constant
Application to such Blandishments as naturally root out the Force of
Reason and Reflection, and substitute in their Place a general
Impatience of Thought, and a constant Pruiriency of inordinate Desire.
Pleasure, when it is a Man's chief Purpose, disappoints it self; and the
constant Application to it palls the Faculty of enjoying it, tho' it
leaves the Sense of our Inability for that we wish, with a Disrelish of
every thing else. Thus the intermediate Seasons of the Man of Pleasure
are more heavy than one would impose upon the vilest Criminal. Take him
when he is awaked too soon after a Debauch, or disappointed in following
a worthless Woman without Truth, and there is no Man living whose Being
is such a Weight or Vexation as his is. He is an utter Stranger to the
pleasing Reflections in the Evening of a well-spent Day, or the Gladness
of Heart or Quickness of Spirit in the Morning after profound Sleep or
indolent Slumbers. He is not to be at Ease any longer than he can keep
Reason and good Sense without his Curtains; otherwise he will be haunted
with the Reflection, that he could not believe such a one the Woman that
upon Trial he found her. What has he got by his Conquest, but to think
meanly of her for whom a Day or two before he had the highest Honour?
and of himself for, perhaps, wronging the Man whom of all Men living he
himself would least willingly have injured?
Pleasure seizes the whole Man who addicts himself to it, and will not
give him Leisure for any good Office in Life which contradicts the
Gaiety of the present Hour. You may indeed observe in People of Pleasure
a certain Complacency and Absence of all Severity, which the Habit of a
loose unconcerned Life gives them; but tell the Man of Pleasure your
secret Wants, Cares, or Sorrows, and you will find he has given up the
Delicacy of his Passions to the Cravings of his Appetites. He little
knows the perfect Joy he loses, for the disappointing Gratifications
which he pursues. He looks at Pleasure as she approaches, and comes to
him with the Recommendation of warm Wishes, gay Looks, and graceful
Motion; but he does not observe how she leaves his Presence with
Disorder, Impotence, down-cast Shame, and conscious Imperfection. She
makes our Youth inglorious, our Age shameful.
Will. Honeycomb
gives us twenty Intimations in an Evening of several
Hags whose Bloom was given up to his Arms; and would raise a Value to
himself for having had, as the Phrase is, very good Women.
Will.'s
good
Women are the Comfort of his Heart, and support him, I warrant, by the
Memory of past Interviews with Persons of their Condition. No, there is
not in the World an Occasion wherein Vice makes so phantastical a
Figure, as at the Meeting of two old People who have been Partners in
unwarrantable Pleasure. To tell a toothless old Lady that she once had a
good Set, or a defunct Wencher that he once was the admired Thing of the
Town, are Satires instead of Applauses; but on the other Side, consider
the old Age of those who have passed their Days in Labour, Industry, and
Virtue, their Decays make them but appear the more venerable, and the
Imperfections of their Bodies are beheld as a Misfortune to humane
Society that their Make is so little durable.
But to return more directly to my Man of Wit and Pleasure. In all Orders
of Men, wherever this is the chief Character, the Person who wears it is
a negligent Friend, Father, and Husband, and entails Poverty on his
unhappy Descendants. Mortgages Diseases, and Settlements are the
Legacies a Man of Wit and Pleasure leaves to his Family. All the poor
Rogues that make such lamentable Speeches after every Sessions at
Tyburn
, were, in their Way, Men of Wit and Pleasure, before they fell
into the Adventures which brought them thither.
Irresolution and Procrastination in all a Man's Affairs, are the natural
Effects of being addicted to Pleasure: Dishonour to the Gentleman and
Bankruptcy to the Trader, are the Portion of either whose chief Purpose
of Life is Delight. The chief Cause that this Pursuit has been in all
Ages received with so much Quarter from the soberer Part of Mankind, has
been that some Men of great Talents have sacrificed themselves to it:
The shining Qualities of such People have given a Beauty to whatever
they were engaged in, and a Mixture of Wit has recommended Madness. For
let any Man who knows what it is to have passed much Time in a Series of
Jollity, Mirth, Wit, or humourous Entertainments, look back at what he
was all that while a doing, and he will find that he has been at one
Instant sharp to some Man he is sorry to have offended, impertinent to
some one it was Cruelty to treat with such Freedom, ungracefully noisy
at such a Time, unskilfully open at such a Time, unmercifully calumnious
at such a Time; and from the whole Course of his applauded
Satisfactions, unable in the end to recollect any Circumstance which can
add to the Enjoyment of his own Mind alone, or which he would put his
Character upon with other Men. Thus it is with those who are best made
for becoming Pleasures; but how monstrous is it in the generality of
Mankind who pretend this Way, without Genius or Inclination towards it?
The Scene then is wild to an Extravagance: this is as if Fools should
mimick Madmen. Pleasure of this Kind is the intemperate Meals and loud
Jollities of the common Rate of Country Gentlemen, whose Practice and
Way of Enjoyment is to put an End as fast as they can to that little
Particle of Reason they have when they are sober: These Men of Wit and
Pleasure dispatch their Senses as fast as possible by drinking till they
cannot taste, smoaking till they cannot see, and roaring till they
cannot hear.
T
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Friday, August 24, 1711 |
Steele |
[Greek (transliterated): Ohiae per phyll_on geneàe toiáede kaì andr_on]. Hom. 'Il.' 6, v. 146.
There is no sort of People whose Conversation is so pleasant as that of
military Men, who derive their Courage and Magnanimity from Thought and
Reflection. The many Adventures which attend their Way of Life makes
their Conversation so full of Incidents, and gives them so frank an Air
in speaking of what they have been Witnesses of, that no Company can be
more amiable than that of Men of Sense who are Soldiers. There is a
certain irregular Way in their Narrations or Discourse, which has
something more warm and pleasing than we meet with among Men who are
used to adjust and methodize their Thoughts.
I was this Evening walking in the Fields with my Friend Captain
Sentry
,
and I could not, from the many Relations which I drew him into of what
passed when he was in the Service, forbear expressing my Wonder, that
the Fear of Death, which we, the rest of Mankind, arm ourselves against
with so much Contemplation, Reason and Philosophy, should appear so
little in Camps, that common Men march into open Breaches, meet opposite
Battalions, not only without Reluctance but with Alacrity. My Friend
answered what I said in the following manner:
'What you wonder at may very naturally be the Subject of Admiration to
all who are not conversant in Camps; but when a Man has spent some
time in that way of Life, he observes a certain Mechanick Courage
which the ordinary Race of Men become Masters of from acting always in
a Crowd: They see indeed many drop, but then they see many more alive;
they observe themselves escape very narrowly, and they do not know why
they should not again. Besides which general way of loose thinking,
they usually spend the other Part of their Time in Pleasures upon
which their Minds are so entirely bent, that short Labours or Dangers
are but a cheap purchase of Jollity, Triumph, Victory, fresh Quarters,
new Scenes, and uncommon Adventures.'
Such are the Thoughts of the Executive Part of an Army, and indeed of
the Gross of Mankind in general; but none of these Men of Mechanical
Courage have ever made any great Figure in the Profession of Arms. Those
who are formed for Command, are such as have reasoned themselves, out of
a Consideration of greater Good than Length of Days, into such a
Negligence of their Being, as to make it their first Position, That it
is one Day to be resigned; and since it is, in the Prosecution of worthy
Actions and Service of Mankind they can put it to habitual Hazard. The
Event of our Designs, say they, as it relates to others, is uncertain;
but as it relates to ourselves it must be prosperous, while we are in
the Pursuit of our Duty, and within the Terms upon which Providence has
ensured our Happiness, whether we die or live. All
that
Nature
prescribed must be good; and as Death is natural to us, it is Absurdity
to fear it. Fear loses its Purpose when we are sure it cannot preserve
us, and we should draw Resolution to meet it from the Impossibility to
escape it. Without a Resignation to the Necessity of dying, there can be
no Capacity in Man to attempt any thing that is glorious: but when they
have once attained to that Perfection, the Pleasures of a Life spent in
Martial Adventures, are as great as any of which the human Mind is
capable. The Force of Reason gives a certain Beauty, mixed with the
Conscience of well-doing and Thirst of Glory, to all which before was
terrible and ghastly to the Imagination. Add to this, that the
Fellowship of Danger, the common good of Mankind, the general Cause, and
the manifest Virtue you may observe in so many Men, who made no Figure
till that Day, are so many Incentives to destroy the little
Consideration of their own Persons. Such are the Heroick Part of
Soldiers who are qualified for Leaders: As to the rest whom I before
spoke of, I know not how it is, but they arrive at a certain Habit of
being void of Thought, insomuch that on occasion of the most imminent
Danger they are still in the same Indifference. Nay I remember an
Instance of a gay
French-man
, who was led on in Battle by a
superior Officer, (whose Conduct it was his Custom to speak of always
with Contempt and Raillery) and in the Beginning of the Action received
a Wound he was sensible was mortal;
Reflection on this Occasion was,
I wish I could live another Hour, to see how this blundering Coxcomb
will get clear of this Business.
I remember two young Fellows who rid in the same Squadron of a Troop of
Horse, who were ever together; they eat, they drank, they intreagued; in
a word, all their Passions and Affections seemed to tend the same Way,
and they appeared serviceable to each other in them. We were in the Dusk
of the Evening to march over a River, and the Troop these Gentlemen
belonged to were to be transported in a Ferry-boat, as fast as they
could. One of the Friends was now in the Boat, while the other was drawn
up with others by the Waterside waiting the Return of the Boat. A
Disorder happened in the Passage by an unruly Horse; and a Gentleman who
had the Rein of his Horse negligently under his Arm, was forced into the
Water by his Horse's Jumping over. The Friend on the Shore cry'd out,
Who's that is drowned trow? He was immediately answer'd, Your Friend,
Harry Thompson
. He very gravely reply'd,
Ay, he had a mad
Horse
. This short Epitaph from such a Familiar, without more Words,
gave me, at that Time under Twenty, a very moderate Opinion of the
Friendship of Companions. Thus is Affection and every other Motive of
Life in the Generality rooted out by the present busie Scene about them:
they lament no Man whose Capacity can be supplied by another; and where
Men converse without Delicacy, the next Man you meet will serve as well
as he whom you have lived with half your Life. To such the Devastation
of Countries, the Misery of Inhabitants, the Cries of the Pillaged, and
the silent Sorrow of the great Unfortunate, are ordinary Objects; their
Minds are bent upon the little Gratifications of their own Senses and
Appetites, forgetful of Compassion, insensible of Glory, avoiding only
Shame; their whole Hearts taken up with the trivial Hope of meeting and
being merry. These are the People who make up the Gross of the Soldiery:
But the fine Gentleman in that Band of Men is such a One as I have now
in my Eye, who is foremost in all Danger to which he is ordered. His
Officers are his Friends and Companions, as they are Men of Honour and
Gentlemen; the private Men his Brethren, as they are of his Species. He
is beloved of all that behold him: They wish him in Danger as he views
their Ranks, that they may have Occasions to save him at their own
Hazard. Mutual Love is the Order of the Files where he commands; every
Man afraid for himself and his Neighbour, not lest their Commander
should punish them, but lest he should be offended. Such is his Regiment
who knows Mankind, and feels their Distresses so far as to prevent them.
Just in distributing what is their Due, he would think himself below
their Tailor to wear a Snip of their Cloaths in
Lace upon his own; and below the most rapacious Agent, should he enjoy
a Farthing above his own Pay. Go on, brave Man, immortal Glory is thy
Fortune, and immortal Happiness thy Reward.
T.
which
This is told in the
Memoirs of Condé
of the Chevalier de
Flourilles, a lieutenant-general of his killed in 1674, at the Battle of
Senelf.
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Saturday, August 25, 1711 |
Steele |
Habet natura ut aliarum omnium rerum sic vivendi modum; senectus autem peractio Ætatis est tanquam Fabulæ. Cujus defatigationem fugere debemus, præsertim adjunctâ Satietate.
Tull. de Senec.
Of all the impertinent Wishes which we hear expressed in Conversation,
there is not one more unworthy a Gentleman or a Man of liberal
Education, than that of wishing one's self Younger. I have observed this
Wish is usually made upon Sight of some Object which gives the Idea of a
past Action, that it is no Dishonour to us that we cannot now repeat, or
else on what was in it self shameful when we performed it. It is a
certain Sign of a foolish or a dissolute Mind if we want our Youth again
only for the Strength of Bones and Sinews which we once were Masters of.
It is (as my Author has it) as absurd in an old Man to wish for the
Strength of a Youth, as it would be in a young Man to wish for the
Strength of a Bull or a Horse. These Wishes are both equally out of
Nature, which should direct in all things that are not contradictory to
Justice, Law, and Reason.
tho' every old Man has been
Young
,
and every young one hopes to be old, there seems to be a most unnatural
Misunderstanding between those two Stages of Life. The unhappy Want of
Commerce arises from the insolent Arrogance or Exultation in Youth, and
the irrational Despondence or Self-pity in Age. A young Man whose
Passion and Ambition is to be good and wise, and an old one who has no
Inclination to be lewd or debauched, are quite unconcerned in this
Speculation; but the Cocking young Fellow who treads upon the Toes of
his Elders, and the old Fool who envies the sawcy Pride he sees in him,
are the Objects of our present Contempt and Derision. Contempt and
Derision are harsh Words; but in what manner can one give Advice to a
Youth in the Pursuit and Possession of sensual Pleasures, or afford Pity
to an old Man in the Impotence and Desire of Enjoying them? When young
Men in publick Places betray in their Deportment an abandoned
Resignation to their Appetites, they give to sober Minds a Prospect of a
despicable Age, which, if not interrupted by Death in the midst of their
Follies, must certainly come. When an old Man bewails the Loss of such
Gratifications which are passed, he discovers a monstrous Inclination to
that which it is not in the Course of Providence to recal.
The State of an old Man, who is dissatisfy'd merely for his being such,
is the most out of all Measures of Reason and good Sense of any Being we
have any Account of from the highest Angel to the lowest Worm. How
miserable is the Contemplation to consider a libidinous old Man (while
all Created things, besides himself and Devils, are following the Order
of Providence) fretting at the Course of things, and being almost the
sole Malecontent in the Creation. But let us a little reflect upon what
he has lost by the number of Years: The Passions which he had in Youth
are not to be obeyed as they were then, but Reason is more powerful now
without the Disturbance of them. An old Gentleman t'other Day in
Discourse with a Friend of his (reflecting upon some Adventures they had
in Youth together) cry'd out,
Oh Jack, those were happy Days! That is
true
, reply'd his Friend,
but methinks we go about our Business
more quietly than we did then
. One would think it should be no small
Satisfaction to have gone so far in our Journey that the Heat of the Day
is over with us. When Life itself is a Feaver, as it is in licentious
Youth, the Pleasures of it are no other than the Dreams of a Man in that
Distemper, and it is as absurd to wish the Return of that Season of
Life, as for a Man in Health to be sorry for the Loss of gilded Palaces,
fairy Walks, and flowery Pastures, with which he remembers he was
entertained in the troubled Slumbers of a Fit of Sickness.
As to all the rational and worthy Pleasures of our Being, the Conscience
of a good Fame, the Contemplation of another Life, the Respect and
Commerce of honest Men, our Capacities for such Enjoyments are enlarged
by Years. While Health endures, the latter Part of Life, in the Eye of
Reason, is certainly the more eligible. The Memory of a well-spent Youth
gives a peaceable, unmixed, and elegant Pleasure to the Mind; and to
such who are so unfortunate as not to be able to look back on Youth with
Satisfaction, they may give themselves no little Consolation that they
are under no Temptation to repeat their Follies, and that they at
present despise them. It was prettily said,
'He that would be long an old Man, must begin early to be one:'
It is too late to resign a thing
after a Man is robbed of it; therefore it is necessary that before the
Arrival of Age we bid adieu to the Pursuits of Youth, otherwise sensual
Habits will live in our Imaginations when our Limbs cannot be
subservient to them. The poor Fellow who lost his Arm last Siege, will
tell you, he feels the Fingers that were buried in
Flanders
ake
every cold Morning at
Chelsea
.
The fond Humour of appearing in the gay and fashionable World, and being
applauded for trivial Excellencies, is what makes Youth have Age in
Contempt, and makes Age resign with so ill a Grace the Qualifications of
Youth: But this in both Sexes is inverting all things, and turning the
natural Course of our Minds, which should build their Approbations and
Dislikes upon what Nature and Reason dictate, into Chimera and
Confusion.
Age in a virtuous Person, of either Sex, carries in it an Authority
which makes it preferable to all the Pleasures of Youth. If to be
saluted, attended, and consulted with Deference, are Instances of
Pleasure, they are such as never fail a virtuous old Age. In the
Enumeration of the Imperfections and Advantages of the younger and later
Years of Man, they are so near in their Condition, that, methinks, it
should be incredible we see so little Commerce of Kindness between them.
If we consider Youth and Age with
Tully
, regarding the Affinity
to Death, Youth has many more Chances to be near it than Age; what Youth
can say more than an old Man, 'He shall live 'till Night?' Youth catches
Distempers more easily, its Sickness is more violent, and its Recovery
more doubtful. The Youth indeed hopes for many more Days, so cannot the
old Man. The Youth's Hopes are ill-grounded; for what is more foolish
than to place any Confidence upon an Uncertainty? But the old Man has
not Room so much as for Hope; he is still happier than the Youth, he has
already enjoyed what the other does but hope for: One wishes to live
long, the other has lived long. But alas, is there any thing in human
Life, the Duration of which can be called long? There is nothing which
must end to be valued for its Continuance. If Hours, Days, Months, and
Years pass away, it is no matter what Hour, what Day, what Month, or
what Year we die. The Applause of a good Actor is due to him at whatever
Scene of the Play he makes his Exit. It is thus in the Life of a Man of
Sense, a short Life is sufficient to manifest himself a Man of Honour
and Virtue; when he ceases to be such he has lived too long, and while
he is such, it is of no Consequence to him how long he shall be so,
provided he is so to his Life's End.
T.
a Young
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Monday, August 27, 1711 |
Steele |
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus ...
Juv.
Mr.
Spectator,
'You are frequent in the mention of Matters which concern the feminine
World, and take upon you to be very severe against Men upon all those
Occasions:
But all this while I am afraid you have been very little
conversant with Women, or you would know the generality of them are
not so angry as you imagine at the general Vices
among1 us. I am
apt to believe (begging your Pardon) that you are still what I my self
was once, a queer modest Fellow; and therefore, for your Information,
shall give you a short Account of my self, and the Reasons why I was
forced to wench, drink, play, and do every thing which are necessary
to the Character of a Man of Wit and Pleasure, to be well with the
Ladies.
You are to know then that I was bred a Gentleman, and had the
finishing Part of my Education under a Man of great Probity, Wit, and
Learning, in one of our Universities. I will not deny but this made my
Behaviour and Mein bear in it a Figure of Thought rather than Action;
and a Man of a quite contrary Character, who never thought in his
Life, rallied me one Day upon it, and said, He believed I was still a
Virgin. There was a young Lady of Virtue present, and I was not
displeased to favour the Insinuation; but it had a quite contrary
Effect from what I expected. I was ever after treated with great
Coldness both by that Lady and all the rest of my Acquaintance.
In a
very little time I never came into a Room but I could hear a Whisper,
Here comes the Maid: A Girl of Humour would on some
Occasion2
say, Why, how do you know more than any of us? An Expression of that
kind was generally followed by a loud Laugh: In a word, for no other
Fault in the World than that they really thought me as innocent as
themselves, I became of no Consequence among them, and was received
always upon the Foot of a Jest. This made so strong an Impression upon
me, that I resolved to be as agreeable as the best of the Men who
laugh'd at me; but I observed it was Nonsense for me to be Impudent at
first among those who knew me: My Character for Modesty was so
notorious wherever I had hitherto appeared, that I resolved to shew my
new Face in new Quarters of the World.
My first Step I chose with
Judgment; for I went to
Astrop3, and came down among a Crowd of
Academicks, at one Dash, the impudentest Fellow they had ever seen in
their Lives. Flushed with this Success, I made Love and was happy.
Upon this Conquest I thought it would be unlike a Gentleman to stay
longer with my Mistress, and crossed the Country to
Bury: I could
give you a very good Account of my self at that Place also. At these
two ended my first Summer of Gallantry. The Winter following, you
would wonder at it, but I relapsed into Modesty upon coming among
People of Figure in
London, yet not so much but that the Ladies who
had formerly laughed at me, said, Bless us! how wonderfully that
Gentleman is improved?
Some Familiarities about the Play-houses
towards the End of the ensuing Winter, made me conceive new Hopes of
Adventures; and instead of returning the next Summer to
Astrop or
Bury4, I thought my self qualified to go to
Epsom, and followed
a young Woman, whose Relations were jealous of my Place in her Favour,
to
Scarborough. I carried my Point, and in my third Year aspired to
go to
Tunbridge, and in the Autumn of the same Year made my
Appearance at
Bath. I was now got into the Way of Talk proper for
Ladies, and was run into a vast Acquaintance among them, which I
always improved to the
best Advantage. In all this Course of Time,
and some Years following, I found a sober modest Man was always looked
upon by both Sexes as a precise unfashioned Fellow of no Life or
Spirit. It was ordinary for a Man who had been drunk in good Company,
or passed a Night with a Wench, to speak of it next Day before Women
for whom he had the greatest Respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a
Blow of the Fan, or an Oh Fie, but the angry Lady still preserved an
apparent Approbation in her Countenance: He was called a strange
wicked Fellow, a sad Wretch; he shrugs his Shoulders, swears, receives
another Blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well.
You might often see Men game in the Presence of Women, and throw at
once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as Men of
Spirit. I found by long Experience that the loosest Principles and
most abandoned Behaviour, carried all before them in Pretensions to
Women of Fortune. The Encouragement given to People of this Stamp,
made me soon throw off the remaining Impressions of a sober Education.
In the above-mentioned Places, as well as in Town, I always kept
Company with those who lived most at large; and in due Process of Time
I was a pretty Rake among the Men, and a very pretty Fellow among the
Women. I must confess, I had some melancholy Hours upon the Account of
the Narrowness of my Fortune, but my Conscience at the same time gave
me the Comfort that I had qualified my self for marrying a Fortune.
When I had lived in this manner for some time, and became thus
accomplished, I was now in the twenty seventh Year of my Age, and
about the Forty seventh of my Constitution, my Health and Estate
wasting very fast; when I happened to fall into the Company of a very
pretty young Lady in her own Disposal. I entertained the Company, as
we Men of Gallantry generally do, with the many Haps and Disasters,
Watchings under Windows, Escapes from jealous Husbands, and several
other Perils. The young Thing was wonderfully charmed with one that
knew the World so well, and talked so fine; with
Desdemona, all her
Lover said affected her;
it was strange,'twas wondrous strange. In a
word, I saw the Impression I had made upon her, and with a very little
Application the pretty Thing has married me. There is so much Charm in
her Innocence and Beauty, that I do now as much detest the Course I
have been in for many Years, as I ever did before I entred into it.
What I intend, Mr.
Spectator, by writing all this to you, is that you
would, before you go any further with your Panegyricks on the Fair
Sex, give them some Lectures upon their silly Approbations. It is that
I am weary of Vice, and that it was not my natural Way, that I am now
so far recovered as not to bring this believing dear Creature to
Contempt and Poverty for her Generosity to me. At the same time tell
the Youth of good Education of our Sex, that they take too little Care
of improving themselves in little things: A good Air at entring into a
Room, a proper Audacity in expressing himself with Gaiety and
Gracefulness, would make a young Gentleman of Virtue and Sense capable
of discountenancing the shallow impudent Rogues that shine among the
Women.
Mr.
Spectator, I don't doubt but you are a very sagacious Person, but
you are so great with
Tully of late, that I fear you will contemn
these Things as Matters of no Consequence: But believe me, Sir, they
are of the highest Importance to Human Life; and if you can do any
thing towards opening fair Eyes, you will lay an Obligation upon all
your Contemporaries who are Fathers, Husbands, or Brothers to Females.
Your most affectionate humble Servant,
Simon Honeycomb.